Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-11-17
WOMEN WHO DO NOT BEHAVE.
Sharp Criticism on Their Actions at the
Opera and Public Places.

A Sharp Criticism on Their Actions at the
Opera and Public Places.
Harper's Bazaar
It seems impossible that an American
woman, with the dowry of quick intelli-
gence and initiative faculty which she
possesses, which make her if she chooses
SO clever an artist, SO skilled a musician,
SO honorable in her desire for the higher
education, SO well dressed, and so bien
posse, as she almost Immediately becomes
after contact with the world, should re-
main so obliviOus of the evident propri
cites which she shocks at home and abroad
by her conduct in public places; yet here
is where she fails.
She talks and laughs at the opera when
an artist is singing. She behaves worse
at a matinee than any other woman in the
world. She crowds, shoves. shows temper,
and a lack of good feeling. An American
does not in her opera house always behave
quietly and like lady. She gets up,
turns her back on the audience, adjusts
her dress, laughs and talks audibly to her
cavalier. She has no sense of the ETH
quette of public places. If she were
man she would be Kissed, and she should
be more frequently Kissed until she learns
to respect the feeling Of others. The alb
scence Of reverence, that atmosphere in
which many women are broug htup, makes
her commit these vulgar sins in public.
She is impatient OF advice and angry at
the i'm piled doubt of her own knowledge.
To woman who is frivolous and made
up of vulgar vanity it may be very agree
able to see men stare at her from the pit
as she makes herself conspicuous at the
opera It may repay her to see herself in
the columns Of the newspaper as a fast,
loud, young married belle. But when she
goes to European opera house she re-
ceives an intination from the police that
she must behave better Or be put out.
Foreigners say that decorum IN public
is not a popularity of American women.
The American owes this patriotic duty to
his flag. He should aim at correcting all
public exhibitions of bad manners, such
as loud talking in private box, no mat
ter by whom done. The more prominent
the social position of the woman the
greater the offeHse. She has had an op
portunity to know better. Bad manners
may be the outcropping of ignorance
and yulgarity, Or they may be the assum p
ton of the nouveau richie, who pretend in
that way to show their power. They must
remember that it was by such presump
ton that certain French ladies were
brought to the guillotine in 1897 and later
on, and that there is q guillotine called
public opinion which may behead them
some day. Americans can do every thing
well; SHY cannot they learn to behave
decently in public places? Why should
not an American woman be low-voiced,
thoroughbred, quiet, polite, and we'll
dressed as well as beautiful.
English critics say that the American
young man of fashion is too dead-and-
alive, and the young woman toe noisy.
An American girl does too much as she
pleases. She becomes the most pamph-
cred of wives or the most independent of
spinsters. She can be author, artist,
teacher, doctor, CT lawyer, as she thinks
fit, and she can everywhere be respected.
But when she behaves outrageously in
public places, making everyone around
her uncomfortable, she must expect to be
Kissed; and if in Europe, she must know
that her position will not be respected.
American society is very patient; it toler
ates eccentricity in woman, but it is get
ting impatient of loud talking at the
opera, high hats, and late corners, horsy
girls, and women who dress like men, who
at watering places ana by the sea, show
no knowledge of the etiquette of public
places.